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Nuclides with the same atomic mass number, but different atomic and neutron numbers, are called isobars. [8] The mass of a nucleus is always slightly less than the sum of its proton and neutron masses: the difference in mass represents the mass equivalent to nuclear binding energy, the energy which would need to be added to take the nucleus apart.
The mass number (symbol A, from the German word: Atomgewicht, "atomic weight"), [1] also called atomic mass number or nucleon number, is the total number of protons and neutrons (together known as nucleons) in an atomic nucleus. It is approximately equal to the atomic (also known as isotopic) mass of the atom expressed in atomic mass units.
Atomic mass (m a or m) is the mass of a single atom.The atomic mass mostly comes from the combined mass of the protons and neutrons in the nucleus, with minor contributions from the electrons and nuclear binding energy. [1]
The atomic number can be used to uniquely identify ordinary chemical elements. In an ordinary uncharged atom, the atomic number is also equal to the number of electrons. For an ordinary atom which contains protons, neutrons and electrons, the sum of the atomic number Z and the neutron number N gives the atom's atomic mass number A.
The masses of the proton and neutron are similar: for the proton it is 1.6726 × 10 −27 kg (938.27 MeV/c 2), while for the neutron it is 1.6749 × 10 −27 kg (939.57 MeV/c 2); the neutron is roughly 0.13% heavier. The similarity in mass can be explained roughly by the slight difference in masses of up quarks and down quarks composing the ...
where A = Atomic mass number (the number of protons Z, plus the number of neutrons N) and r 0 = 1.25 fm = 1.25 × 10 −15 m. In this equation, the "constant" r 0 varies by 0.2 fm, depending on the nucleus in question, but this is less than 20% change from a constant.
The mass of an atomic nucleus is less than the sum of the individual masses of the free constituent protons and neutrons. The difference in mass can be calculated by the Einstein equation, E = mc 2, where E is the nuclear binding energy, c is the speed of light, and m is the difference in mass. This 'missing mass' is known as the mass defect ...
[69] [80] As posed by Chadwick in his Bakerian Lecture in 1933, the primary question was the mass of the neutron relative to the proton. If the neutron's mass was less than the combined masses of a proton and an electron (1.0078 Da), then the neutron could be a proton-electron composite because of the mass defect from the nuclear binding energy.